Consumer forum pulls up chit fund firm for disallowing Hyderabad man to bid

HYDERABAD: People subscribe to chit funds to bid for a lump sum amount of money at a particular time to meet contingency expenditure. A Malkajgiri resident was under the same impression until he was denied a chance to bid for chit money which he needed to conduct his daughter’s wedding. A consumer forum directed Kapil Chit Funds to pay the consumer Rs 1.40 lakh apart from refunding the paid subscription amount of Rs 1.50 lakh.

S Venkatesh, a driver by profession from Malkajgiri, joined a five-month-old chit in September 2015 on the advice given by the company. In accordance with it, a consent letter, ‘angeekara patram’, was drafted in the presence of the manager to confirm the transfer of chit fund on payment of an amount of `42,000 towards the previous instalments. And, he was given a passbook. After completing payment of 15 subscriptions of `10,000 each for a `5 lakh chit, Venkatesh bade for chit amount in an auction as he required the money to perform his daughter’s wedding. But, the company did not process his request for the bid and postponed it.

In his complaint to the forum, he alleged, that he was ignored as he was an illiterate and said that the company did not allow him to participate in the auction. On the other hand, the company held that Venkatesh never participated in any meeting. The passbook shown by him was fake and the question of his participation in the bid did not arise, they claimed. “If the complainant is not the purchaser of a running chit, how could he  issue a cheque drawn in favour of the opposite party as evidenced by the bank savings account passbook. These facts by themselves show that the complainant had paid 15 chit subscriptions,” the order said.

The forum directed the company to refund the 15-month subscription amount with 18 per cent interest and another `60,000 for causing him mental agony and litigation costs.